Tuesday on the blog means that I get to share some of what I have found interesting and thought provoking over the past week. To help make sense of all these links, I have grouped them by the following topic categories: Church and Ministry Thought & Practice; Cross-Sector Collaboration; Leadership Thought & Practice; Millennials; Neighbor Love; Social Media & Blogging; Stewardship; Vocation and Miscellaneous. I hope you enjoy these links!

Church and Ministry Thought & Practice

In case you are planning worship or a sermon for later this week, Bishop Michael Rinehart shared some reflections about “Ascension B.” If it’s helpful, I also shared this post about Ascension Day last year.

Rev. Dr. David Lose asked a timely and provocative question, asking and reflecting about “What Are We Protecting?” Great question! How would you respond? Lose also shared a post for those preparing for worship this coming weekend, “Easter 7B: Called and Sent.”

Friend and professor Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis wonderfully wrote, “Choose Joy.” Karoline also posted this on her own blog here, grounded in John 15:9-17. Spend some time with this post! Karoline also shared her post for this coming weekend, Easter 7, in sharing this reflection based on John 17, asking, “What Makes You Feel Alive?”

Ben Stroup shared “4 Behaviors Costing Your Church Money and Shared Vision.” Ben specifically highlights and unpacks the following behaviors: pastors who stay on the sidelines; stewards who leave their business sense at the office; an attitude of “not my church”; and marginalizing or excluding seniors.

A little over four years ago, some friends and I concocted a fun experiment with brackets and seminarian’s favorite hymns and worship songs to coincide with March Madness. In some fashion or another I ended up running that experiment for a couple years consecutively after that fun. I’m sharing this because four years later our little experiment has become sort of a subject to an article by Paul Koch in an academic journal, The Cresset, titled, “Hymn Brackets.” Check it out and see what you think.

Rachel Held Evans shared, “7 Ways to Welcome Young People to the Mainline.” The ways that Rachel highlights includes: update your website; take risks on unconventional church plants; infuse the traditional liturgy and sacraments with some creativity; relax a little; don’t assume we know why you believe what you believe, or why you do what you do; challenge us; and help us build lasting relationships.

If you are looking for a great worship and music conference to attend this summer, check out “Called to be a Living Voice,” with a focus on vocation, Reformation and mission.

Jon Mertz at Thin Difference shared ideas on “Crafting a Conscious Culture.” Within this Jon shared three elements to crafting a conscious culture: give separately, work together in purpose; care for community equals care for team members; and a flattened hierarchy of needs.

Thin Difference shared a guest post by Scott Savage, arguing that “Entitlement is Stealing Our Future.” Not only are there good thoughts about leadership and Millennials in this, there is also good stuff on gratitude with implications for stewardship. Scott shared three ideas for cultivating gratitude in one’s life: exercise your gratitude muscles; understand that gratitude does not change your experience, but rather gratitude changes your perception of your experience; and stick with gratitude long enough for it to build generosity and contentment.

Nixon Boumba shared important thoughts on “How not to rebuild Nepal: lessons from Haiti five years after its earthquake.” Included in this are five important lessons for disaster relief: listen to local people; put money in the hands of local people; reach the most vulnerable people; invest in infrastructure now to prevent larger disasters in the future; and Aid must be coordinated, efficient and transparent.

Friend and blogger J.W. Wartick shared his version of the links with his “Really Recommended Posts.” This week I’m especially grateful to J.W. for including one of my posts in his curated list. Thank you J.W.!

My wife Allison shared a beautiful and moving post titled, “California rain.” Within this Allison writes, “California rain. It pours. In my anxiety, I turn to see if he feels it pouring too, but see him smiling, offering me to join him under the awning. All I can feel is grateful.”

Friend, professor and mentor Dr. Terri Elton shared life and vocational updates in “…and she returns!” There are good insights which I think any family with college students can relate to about the process of going to school, and coming “home” for the summer, among other things.

That will conclude this week’s edition of the links. I hope you have enjoyed them! As always, if you have things to include in future editions of the links, or questions or topics to share about and wrestle with on the blog, please let me know. Until next time, thank you for reading and being part of the conversation, and blessings on your week! -TS